A now profitable Tesla motors hopes that a $49,900 Model S sedan will send its profit soaring to even greater heights.

The company is also launching the Roadster Sport model in 2011. (Source: Tesla Motors)

After years of losses, the company's persistence is finally paying off

Luxury electric car maker Tesla Motors
appears to be firing on all cylinders. Despite a painful couple
of years that saw the company cutting back to survive the recession,
the company emerged stronger than ever. Thanks to a new
partnership
with Daimler, additional engineering, distribution, and marketing
resources were gained. And most importantly, Tesla finally
began to deliver
vehicles.

Now the company can celebrate an important
milestone -- its first
profit. After many months in the red, July saw the company
in the black, making $1M USD in profit on $20M USD in revenue.
The profits came thanks to a record 109 cars shipped in the month.
Manufacturing cost cuts also helped to enable the profit.

Tesla
Chief Executive Elon Musk comments, "There is strong demand for
a car that is unique in offering high performance with a clean
conscience. Customers know that in buying the Roadster they are
helping fund development of our mass market electric cars."

Tesla,
like many R&D driven greentech firms, offered a target date for
profitability. However, it appears that Tesla is one of the few
to actually deliver on such a date -- having projected
a profit in "mid-2009".

The Tesla Roadster
undeniably features the most attractive production electric vehicle
body design to date. They also offer fittingly sporty
performance and a utilitarian 244-mile range. In other words,
while expensive, the Roadsters do deliver a strong experience.
Currently, the Roadsters retail for a base price of $109,000.

Tesla
has borrowed
$465M USD from the U.S. Department of Energy, to produce a luxury
sedan reachable by more customers at a price point of $49,900.
This new model will be called the Model
S.

The company is also working with Daimler to create
electric versions of the popular Smart car. Late this year, the
company will deploy a fleet of the 1,000 of the electrified
ultra-compact vehicles. Tesla is also set to deploy a
higher-performance version of the Roadster -- the Roadster Sport --
in 2011.

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And the Ethanol car need a heavy gearbox which the battery powered don't so you can replace that with the 400kg battery (50kWh or enough for some 200km'ers just add a small diesel/gasoline engine to charge it.) neither can you produce enough bio-ethanol to do much of anything.

Sweden uses 10% of it's grains or 4% of the agricultural land to produce 85% of the ethanol* that's mixed with ordinary gasoline, and gasoline is just about over half of the road transports energy wise. It's pretty silly. Producing electricity for bev or PHEV is much easier. * It's a 5 percent mixture (volume). And the wheat is very high yield.

#1. A BEV with reasonable range will not weigh less than a comparable gasoline car. In all known examples, a BEV car with reasonable range 150 km+ will weigh more than its comparable gasoline car. Clearly the BEV with reasonable range has in the past wieghed close to 20% more than a comparable gas car, all things being equal. No doubt for the Nissan Leaf, Nissan will be using customer parts etc that lower the end weight to close the mass of a Versa (US Model). Similar to what Toyota and Honda due with their Hybrids that hide the extra weight.

A Tesla Roadster weighs in a a good 700 lbs over a Lotus Elise, an increase of 35% that is not entirely due to conversion to electric but is unreasonable for the minor changes done.

The Electric Mini also weighs in at a premium of 500 lbs + over its gasoline counterpart. An increase of ~20%.

A Rav4 1999 electric conversion was around 600 lbs heavier than its gasoline counterpart. Again an increase of ~20%.

Why is this? Although you get ride of a transmission ~100 kg, an Engine ~100 kg and various components ~50 kg. You add a very heavy battery. Inverters. Battery control systems. An electric motor, etc etc etc.

#2. Picking Sweden for saying Ethanol is not good is... strange. Obviously a country with comparatively small argiculture will have difficulty growing its own Bio-Fuels. I think that Sweden is not even a net exporter of food... clearly its a poor choice for Sweden.

I don't disagree with the end conclusion, but your painting too rosy of a picture when it comes to electrics.